


Sickness of Poacher's Pride

by spookyjimchristmas



Category: BLURRYFACE - Twenty One Pilots (Album), Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angels, M/M, Multi, Sad, also Josh/Jesse was something that happened before the fic, i got this idea after listening to poacher's pride by nicole dollanganger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-04 05:23:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11548368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyjimchristmas/pseuds/spookyjimchristmas
Summary: In the not so distant future, humanity has been ruined by global warming and the actions of the evil dictator who appointed himself so despite many people's protests. Brought down by all this suffering, angels began to drop from heaven. But they too became corrupted by the evil of this rotten Gaea. Josh is part of a group who rounds up the remaining good angels to help revert the evil ones back to good. Tyler is found, an angel that could save the remnants of humanity. But can Josh let him go to set humanity free?





	1. The Beginning

The sun was slowly setting somewhere west of him when he looked up to notice the slight temperature change. The sun was starting to set earlier and earlier and Josh had remembered his father telling him stories about that being because of a thing called ‘seasons’ that they used to have in the past. He looked down at the wristband. 7:52. He better be heading back to his ‘home’ as they had once called it in days past. Before everything happened.

The sun continued to set and make a long arch above him before settling into its nook in the sky. Josh did not know why he was so fascinated by this process; why he loved to watch it every night. The moon appeared just as quickly as the sun had dove into the depths of night and Josh hiked down the mountainous trail to his now ‘home.’ The door opened easily as he pushed it open, walking inside.

The house wasn’t really much to talk about. It was a small but cozy house. A living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom. But there was one thing Josh was scared of about the ‘house’ that he had been assigned. There was a trapdoor leading down to a soundproofed basement where a luxurious double bed had been placed. There were all sorts of chains and whips and leather straps and Josh had no idea what that could have even meant in past Gaea. He just hoped no one was killed down there.

Josh continued to his bed; too tired to care about changing. The only thing he remembered next was the soft sounds of wind whistling through long-forgotten cracks. The sleep never came easy to him but tonight for some reason it did. And also for some reason, he dreamed.

_‘Evil? Angels don’t just up and turn evil.’ A pause._

_‘Besides Lucifer goddamnit!’ Another pause. He turned to face his father._

_'I’m going outside.’_

_‘Okay Josh okay,’ his father replied, not paying attention to the request from his oldest son._

_Josh ventured outside and the barren streets and cracked pavement seemed even more foreboding that day. Like something could be lurking around the corner… And that day something was. Out of the shadows of the forest Josh played in as a child, a rush of air, of wings. They flapped and engulfed him, making him feel powerless._

_‘Help!’ he tried to cry, but all that came out was a gasp of surprise. The angel grasped him and threw him hard onto the pavement, knocking whatever air Josh had left out of him. He sobbed silently as he looked up at the angel. He was beautiful, but he wanted blood. The angel kneeled down next to Josh. He studied him for a minute or two but to him it felt like hours. Then the beast, not an angel, not a human, slashed his face. Josh’s face twisted in pain and that time he let out a scream. A bloodcurdling one that he felt shook Gaea, shook the demon away. It laughed at him, a deep rumbling noise that sounded akin to thunder rumbling overhead during a lightning storm. He knew he was dead. He knew it. Josh closed his eyes, preparing for the worst. But then a gunshot rang in his already numb skull, shaking Gaea yet again. Josh opened his eyes and the angel was again an angel, but bloody and spilling its eternal youth onto the death of civilization. His dad was grasping at him, screaming in fright._

Josh woke up screaming, crying, trying to swipe at the thing that had almost killed him ten years ago but it was nowhere to be seen. A dream. A dream. Safe to say he did not dream or sleep anymore that night, tossing and turning through the exchange of moon to sun.

“I suppose it’s time for a drink…”


	2. A New Day

The only town Josh had known of since he was about twenty was the one he was assigned to stay at since the war. It wasn’t large like the town he used to live in with his father and mother. No. But again it wasn’t small like some towns he had visited on the outskirts of the quarantine zone when no one was patrolling or particularly taking any notice of him. It was a medium-sized city if that made any sense. Nothing made any sense anymore, so it made perfect sense in Josh’s mind. 

The sign, spray painted and hung over the original sign that used to hang there years before he assumed, read  Hell’s End . Josh never understood the reason why the government, or what remained of it, decided to rename everything and anything to symbolize the ongoing fight against the ‘angels.’ It scared him. 

The only building he had in his sights was the main building he visited when he was in town, the only building he ever really liked in this deserted, ugly town. Heaven’s Hail. Another of the government’s clever damn names. It used to be a coffee shop before, but lack of interest in the brew and rise in interest in liquor and alcohol made the government realize they could make a killing off of their settlement by installing the bar there instead. Josh didn’t mind. Perhaps in another life or time he would have enjoyed coffee, but liquor just helped him forget. He pushed open the doors and took in the atmosphere. Two other patrons and one bartender, the only one that had always been there.

“Hello Jesse.” Josh said, coming up to the bar and taking in his appearance. He was tall and appeared slight in frame, but Josh knew he had muscle. He knew in ways other people did not need to know. 

“I thought you were dead, Josh. Don’t worry me like that.” He reached for the whiskey, government made and issued. 

“You know better than to assume I’m dead. You know I can’t die.” Jesse laughed, a beautiful sound that seemed to light up the dead, ugly room. No one else looked up. Jesse reached across the bar to stroke the scars on his face that started above his eye and ended on his jaw. 

“I know, I just worry Josh. You know that.” he said softly. Josh looked around and of course no one was looking at them, why would they be? They had sorrows to drown themselves. 

“Where’s my whiskey, Jesse?” 

“Ugh Josh, can’t I just  _ talk  _ to you? I haven’t seen you in weeks!” Josh sighed. Jesse sighed in unison, picking the whiskey up off of the counter and popping the cork off of the glass top. He hated the government bottles. And the government. But he very well couldn’t say that. He handed the tumbler of whiskey to Josh and he downed it in one swallow. He gestured to Jesse to pour him another. Jesse remembered again why they didn’t work. Josh was hard and mad and tough to talk to. He poured him another. He again threw it back like it was water. 

“Josh are you okay?” 

“I’m fine, give me another.” Jesse gave him one, two, three more. It wasn’t long before Josh was slurring words and throwing a few dollars on the table. He got up shakily and walked as best as he could out of the Heaven’s Hail. He knew he’d have one hell of a hangover in the morning, but he did not care. What mattered now was the feeling. As he kept stumbling, he thought he could make it home. Until he tripped. He thought he was going to eat the dirt until he felt a hand on the back of his arm grab him and pull him up. He turned around to look at him. He was tall and skinny, but that strength seemed to come from somewhere. The black curly hair and lopsided smile were simply breathtaking. 

“Hello sir, are you okay?”


	3. Dust Rises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (damn i'm sorry. a bunch of crap has happened so that's why I haven't been updating this at all and i thought i was going to go to college but then i didn't so here we are and hopefully i'll update more)

Josh leaned over onto his shoulder to keep his balance. 

“Yeah I’m fine.” he replied, trying to sound cool and collected while inside his emotions raged. He cursed himself for being so dumb as to drink so damn much that he now had to rely on a stranger to hold him up. 

“That’s wonderful. Hey, do I recognize you from somewhere?” The man’s voice had an accent that Josh had only heard on t.v. and movies, old ones. He had no idea that people from… wherever that accent was from had even came over to this side of Gaea. Josh looked again at his face, trying to place him somewhere, anywhere at all. He could not. Josh slowly shook his head and the man laughed, a short burst of light in the darkening day. Josh caught himself staring hopelessly at him, shaking his head in defeat. He had no idea where he was from, if he had ever know him at all. 

“Oh I know! You’re a Pure Poacher!” he yelled loudly. Oh too loudly. Josh covered his ears with his hands and felt his head pound. He already felt the impending hangover and it was going to be a fucking doozy. He nodded, a yes this time, and the man clapped his hands in excitement.

“Good, good. I knew you were the type. You looked it… oh damn, I’m Matty by the way.” He thought about extending his hand but rejected the thought as it was holding the bigger man up. Josh grunted.

“I’m Josh.” he mumbled. The glint in the man’s dark eyes seemed to grow ever brighter, if that was possible. But maybe that was the headache knocking into Josh’s eye sockets and making him see sunlight in the ever dimming day. 

“Josh… I have a deal for you, if you’d like to take it.” Josh stared at him. Matty stared back. He had no idea who this man was or what he wanted to use his strength for, but all in all, Josh was running out of money. He had little options left in this town where he was concerned and the only difference between a bullet in the head from being caught stealing government supplies and getting a potentially good paycheck from this seeming trustworthy guy seemed too good to pass up. 

“How much?” Matty laughed again, this time it was brief but still beautiful. 

“You aren’t even going to ask what you have to do first? Who you might have to off? Who you’re going to even  _ report _ to?” Josh looked at him with the stony cold expression he was used to wearing now. No one ever questioned him when he molded that expression onto his face like a clay onto a wooden figurine. 

“Well okay.” he muttered, clearing his throat before he began. 

“I need you to recover an angel for me.” Josh looked at him. There must have been some trepidation in his eyes because he soon replied. 

“Oh not a bad one. No no. I need you to find me a good one. I think he’s actually hiding out in town here somewhere.” Josh racked his brain, trying to clear the haze in his brain so he could remember if he had saw anyone suspicious. Or anyone new. Nobody new ever comes here. 

“Anyway, keep me up to date. I’d like him somewhere between maybe… these next few weeks? Could you do that?” Josh thought about it and then it hit him. It literally hit him. Every drink he had consumed in the last five hours hit him all at once and he mumbled a hazy yes before dropping, face first, to the ground. Matty giggled loudly, happy to have made a deal with someone as trusting as this man. He picked Josh up effortlessly and carried him to the home he had been watching him come and go from for a few weeks now.


End file.
